The Adjusters (23 page)

Henry tried to hide his disbelief. Mallory was clearly mad enough to think he would go for his proposal. He decided to change the subject, still playing for time. “Where’s my mother?
What have you done with her?”

“Calm down. She’s having a lovely time in a five-star hotel in Chicago. When she returns in a couple of days, she’s going to find a son she’ll never have to worry about
letting out of her sight ever again. Who’ll never get in trouble with the law for vandalizing public property in some pathetic show of teenage rebellion…”

Henry looked away in disgust, but deep down he was relieved. His mom knew nothing about this. “She’d hate what you’re doing. She’ll be able to tell something’s
wrong…”

Mallory laughed harshly. “Really? Or do you think she’ll just be so happy that you’re starting to fit in, get top grades and make friends that she won’t notice anything
at all? You’re a disappointment to her, Henry. Given more time, I’d have persuaded her to sign you up just like all the others – most of them don’t ask too many questions
about what we really do. Just as long as it works. But you’ve forced my hand with all your running around and plotting.”

Henry held his gaze. “
Don’t ask many questions?
You don’t know my mom very well, do you?”

Mallory snorted. “Face it, Henry! She’s sick of you! You’re just like the rest of your generation. All we hear about is how bored you all are with your easy lives and violent
games and lectures about the environment we messed up. How we all ought to shape up and understand you better.” Mallory sat forward and pointed an accusing finger at Henry. “Well
I’ve got news for you, son. We’re the ones who are sick of
you
. And
you’re
the ones who are going to shape up.”

“I’m guessing you weren’t a hippy when you were young,” Henry said.

“Hippies!” Mallory exclaimed. “God, I hated the hippies! Then the punks…metal-heads…goths…new romantics…nerds…emos… They make me want
to goddamn puke!”

“You’re a psychopath.”

Mallory looked at him sadly. “Can’t you see I’m trying to do what’s best for everyone? I’m trying to give hope to desperate parents. All I’m asking you to do
is give adjustment a try. What’s your answer, son?”

“Go shove it.” Henry grabbed the edge of the coffee table and lifted it, throwing the entire thing towards Mallory. The glass top shattered and he had to shield his eyes against the
flying glass shards.

“Stop!” Mallory yelled, but Henry was already up and running for the stairs leading down to the basement…

“Blake!”

Mallory’s grandson stepped from the shadows, too fast for Henry to avoid – he’d obviously been waiting there all along. A fist like an iron girder slammed into his gut and
Henry doubled over, gasping for breath. Blake grabbed him round the neck with one hand and pinned his arms behind his back with the other. Henry struggled, but the other kid was superhuman,
restraining him effortlessly. Wilson the butler appeared with a syringe in his gloved hand…

“Let me go!” Henry said, fighting for breath as Blake’s hand tightened around his neck.

“It’s too bad you didn’t buy into the programme, Henry,” Mallory said as he approached from the sofa. “You could have been a pioneer, our shining star. But we can
always use one more soldier – and one less troublemaker.”

Wilson jabbed the syringe into Henry’s arm and depressed the plunger. Henry felt the liquid enter his bloodstream and a second later his vision began to swim. Blake released his grip and
Henry staggered forward, his legs no longer able to support him. Now he was on his hands and knees at Mallory’s feet, struggling to stay conscious.

“Please…” was all he could manage to say.

“Don’t fight it,” Mallory said. “When you wake up you’re going to love Malcorp and all this will seem like a bad dream. We’re going to fix you.”

“No…”

The floor rushed up and slammed Henry in the face.

In the beginning, there was pain… And then there was light… And then the feeling of being strapped to a table…

Henry sensed someone moving around him so he kept his eyes closed, even though he’d been slowly coming round for a few minutes. He flexed his wrists carefully; they were bound tightly to
the table. The air around him was cold. There was only one place he could be – the medical centre.

“I know you’re awake,” a vaguely familiar voice said. “You can open your eyes.”

Henry did just that and tried to look round, but his head was held in place by some kind of strap. From the tiled walls and equipment in his peripheral vision he could tell he was in one of the
operating theatres. Adrenaline began surging through him and he strained against the bonds that held his arms and legs. No use.

“Easy,” the man said, stepping towards the table so Henry could see him. “Remember me?”

Henry stopped struggling and focused on a bald-headed man, who was dressed in surgeon’s scrubs. He held up his left hand, which was heavily bandaged, and wiggled his fingers in a kind of
wave. Henry remembered him now: the doctor who had confronted him in that very theatre just a few days before. He’d slipped on a scalpel and cut his hand.

“That’s right,” the bald doctor said, seeing the recognition in Henry’s eyes. “Looks like I might have a little nerve damage from the cut. Not good news for a
surgeon, is it? I mean, we kinda need our hands to be in full working order.”

Henry licked his lips, which were incredibly dry. He wondered how long he’d been out. “I’m sorry,” he began. “I didn’t mean to…”

“Oh, you’ll be sorry alright,” the doctor said, leaning close so his round, doughy face filled Henry’s vision. “Why do you think you’re awake right now? Huh?
I brought you out of sedation so you can be fully conscious for your operation.”

“Operation?” Henry tensed the muscles in his right arm… If he could just pull free somehow…

“We’re going to cut open your skull,” the doctor leered down at him. “And you’re going to be fully aware, right up to the moment we start cutting into your brain.
Your own front-row seat. How does that sound to you?”

Henry twisted his head back as far as it would go and yelled, “Help! Somebody help me!”

The doctor smiled and patted Henry on the shoulder. “Don’t waste your breath, kid. There’s no one round here who gives a damn.” He grabbed a trolley loaded with surgical
equipment and wheeled it closer to the table so Henry could see: drills, scalpels, and weird-shaped extraction tongs.

“Please don’t do this,” Henry said, aware of the pleading, desperate tone in his voice. “I’ll be good from now on.”

The doctor chuckled. “That’s what they all say. Right up to the moment we open up their craniums. I’m going to go prep your brain implant, Henry, which should give you some
time to think about the horrible fate that awaits you when I come back. You might want to spend the time rehearsing some new ways to beg me not to do it.”

Henry’s face twisted in rage. “Screw you.”

The doctor waggled a finger on his injured hand at him. “Potty mouth. We’ll have to change that, won’t we?”

With that, he walked from the theatre. Henry lay still for a moment, stunned by the unforgiving silence that had returned to the room. They were really going to do it. When the theatre door
opened again, the surgeons would come in and cut him open…

Henry thrashed madly against his bonds and screamed for help again and again. In the back of his mind he knew it was no use…that he was just playing the sadistic doctor’s game by
showing how desperate, how terrified he was…

After a minute or so he stopped struggling, though he was still breathing heavily and covered with sweat.
Come on, think!
he told himself.
There has to be a way out.

He looked at the trolley to the left of the table, trying to view the surgical equipment with fresh eyes. Rather than instruments of torture, maybe they could help him to get the hell off the
table. The scalpels…cut through the bonds… With all his strength, Henry arched his body up and slammed it to the side. The table moved a couple of centimetres towards the trolley. He
did it again. The table moved a little more.

“Come on!” Henry hissed through gritted teeth. He rocked the table a third time. It moved far enough to hit the edge of the instrument trolley…sending it rolling half a metre
away. Henry slumped. “No…”

The double doors to the theatre opened and someone approached the table. Henry clenched his fists and fought against the restraints once more, even though he knew all hope was lost…

But suddenly there was a blonde-haired girl beside him, in ordinary jeans and a T-shirt.

“Henry!”

Gabrielle leaned over him and reached round the side of his head to release the strap holding it in place.

“Are you okay?”

He almost cried with relief. “Jesus, I thought you were one of them coming back… Untie my arms!”

Gabrielle reached over and undid the straps around his head and wrists. With his upper body free, Henry sat up as she freed his ankles.

“How did you find me?” he asked.

Gabrielle looked at him. “I did as you said
. I opened my eyes.
And I stole a key card from a nurse.”

Henry frowned, trying to make sense of what she was telling him. “But how did you know I was down here?”

“There was a big commotion about an hour ago, so I snuck out of my room. I saw them wheeling you in here on a stretcher. You were all trussed up, so I guessed you weren’t coming of
your own free will.”

“You got that right,” Henry said. “But the last time we spoke, you didn’t believe anything was wrong.”

She blushed a little. “I know. But then I got to looking at that photo you left, the one of me and Blake, and I started remembering. They’ve done something to me…and I want to
know what it is.”

“Let’s get out of here before that doctor gets back,” Henry said, swinging his legs off the table. He tried to stand up and his knees buckled. It felt as if he’d been in
bed for a week. “I can barely walk,” he said, wondering just how long he’d been out. “What time is it?”

“It’s about nine,” Gabrielle replied.

“Nine?” Henry repeated in confusion.
Had he really only been here an hour?
“What day?”

“Tuesday evening,” she said.

Henry shook his head. He’d been sedated for almost twenty-four hours – no doubt while the doctors made the final preparations for the adjustment process. He took a breath and flexed
his legs, feeling the strength coming back to them. “He could be back at any moment.”

“Yeah,” Gabrielle said. “But we should find you some clothes first.”

Henry looked at what he was wearing – a green hospital smock. “Good point,” he said.

Voices sounded in the corridor outside. The surgeons were coming back.

“What do we do?” Gabrielle whispered.

Henry looked at the instrument trolley. Scalpels…saws…an injection gun… He snatched up this last item and a vial of clear liquid that was lying next to it. Fumbling a
little, he slotted the vial into the gun. It hissed as the seal broke. A tiny needle appeared near the muzzle.

“What’s in that?” Gabrielle asked.

Henry looked at her. “I guess we’ll find out, won’t we? Hide over there. We mustn’t let them raise the alarm.”

Gabrielle ran across the theatre and ducked down behind a metal workbench near some lockers. Henry jumped back on the table and lay down with the injection gun in his right hand, concealed at
his side.

As the theatre doors opened once more, he heard a murmuring of voices and footsteps approaching. There were at least two people entering the room. Wheels screeched on the tiles, as if they were
pushing a heavy piece of equipment along. Henry lay very still on the table, hoping they wouldn’t notice the loosened bonds before they got close enough for him to jab them with the gun. He
needn’t have worried. The surgeons, bald and grey-haired, were more interested in the machine they’d brought into the room. It looked like a large water tank on wheels. As the
grey-haired surgeon continued to fuss over the tank, bald-head walked back towards the table…
No doubt planning to give me another friendly talk,
Henry thought, flexing his grip on
the handle of the gun…

The bald surgeon leaned over Henry once again. “Well, how are we feeling about…?”

His voice trailed away as his eyes registered the loosened wrist restraints. Henry moved lightning-fast, twisting round and pressing the muzzle of the gun into the man’s throat. He pulled
the trigger and with a barely audible hiss a dose of the liquid was delivered.

“Help…” bald-head managed to whisper, before his face went slack, his eyes closed and he crashed to the floor, unconscious.

Henry looked round at the other surgeon, who had turned from the tank and was staring in shock at his fallen colleague. Then he noticed that Henry was rising from the table, ready for a
fight.

With a little cry, the surgeon turned and ran.

He almost made it to the door, before Gabrielle threw herself from her hiding place at his legs. The surgeon went down with a cry, hitting the floor with his face. He tried to get up, but Henry
leaped from the table and jumped on his back.